"Leroy" <whe### [at] gmailcom> wrote:

>  I thought of making them for real. It is a skill. I've seen it done on TV.

I had a supervisor on a job teach me how to knap flint.  The basic idea is
fairly straightforward, after that it's just practice.  The key to getting good,
controlled flakes and not breaking the piece was scoring the working edge
_often_ with a stone in order to encourage a good clean fracture when applying
pressure into the piece and down with the point of the tool.

You can use an awl or nail in a handle, and a thick piece of glass (thick plate
glass pane, bottle bottom) or porcelain (plate, toilet tank) for practice.  They
also sell big chunks of obsidian volcanic glass for fish tank decoration.

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